Under the British government’s plan, Brexit is to be implemented no later than March 2019

LONDON, October 25. /TASS/. British society is being persuaded that Russia influenced the outcome of the referendum on the country’s walkout from the European Union (Brexit), Russia’s ambassador to Britain Aleksandr Yakovenko said in news release obtained by the TASS office in London.

"The British public mind is being insistently persuaded that Russia was behind the outcome of the Brexit referendum. We believe that such statements are insulting for the British political leadership and for the British people. The idea of the referendum emerged not in Russia. It was a key election pledge of Prime Minister David Cameron (2010-2016) in 2015 and in making it he hardly bore Russia in mind. British citizens eventually used their legal right, so blaming it on Russian intervention is at least inappropriate," Yakovenko said.

"Now that negotiations over the terms on which the United Kingdom will leave the European Union have become London’s main foreign policy challenge some wish to blame all problems on a third party, in this particular case, Russia," Yakovenko’s statement runs. "We strongly reject this. Russia does not intervene in the affairs of other states. It is a basic principle of Russia’s foreign policy. I am asking the unscrupulous politicians and journalists to stop dictating a fake agenda or try to resolve their own problems at our expense," the ambassador said.

According to Tuesday’s reports the chairman of the House of Commons committee on culture, mass media, sports and digital technologies, Damian Collins, dispatched a query addressed to the founder of the social network Facebook Mark Zuckerberg asking for information about any financial activity of Russia-related accounts during the 2016 referendum on the expediency of Britain’s further EU membership and during last June’s parliamentary elections. In particular, the British legislator is interested in examples of advertisements financed from Russian accounts, the amount of money spent on them and user demand.

Britain’s referendum on exit from the European Union took place on June 23, 2016. The opponents of European integration attained victory by a 51.9% majority vote. Under the British government’s plan Brexit is to be implemented no later than March 2019.